After a fierce election, the BC NDP will go moderate

The B.C. provincial election was a nail-biter. After over a week of recounts and absentee ballot counts, the BC NDP and Premier David Eby have retained a razor-thin majority government. 

The BC Conservatives were obviously going to do nothing but gain seats, but the NDP had to fight for its political life.

Before the writ was dropped — and BC United dropped out — the NDP were starting a campaign of social moderation and prioritizing pocketbook issues. Brakes were put onto the drug decriminalization project and involuntary care became the government’s keystone addiction solution. 

Inflation anxieties prompted promises of tax cuts, pushing Ottawa for bail and sentencing reforms, increasing residential housing construction and rent caps, and breaking ground on a second Surrey hospital, among other policies. 

Results certainly vary with regards to how well these policies and initiatives have been implemented. It is quite likely the New Democrats knew the election heat would be turned up, so they pushed out what they could, when they could, to signal to British Columbians that the government was working. As the results show, not everybody was so thoroughly convinced.

The BC Conservatives are further right than the BC United (Liberals) of old. Their near victory is a warning to the NDP that, especially outside the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, the voters are not playing games. British Columbians want results and will turn to anyone who promises such. 

How the government will do so is the big question. It appears that provincial NDP partisans have a tightrope to walk — keeping the urban voter base happy while not further frustrating the rural bloc. This is easier said than done.

Seeing as the NDP is centre-left — and Canada is especially averse to anything left of social democracy — the likely outcome is that the party will moderate its policies, lean more centre than left, paint itself as more small-business friendly, and reach across the aisle to those dissatisfied Conservatives and/or non-voters. 

Of course, doing that does not pull people to the left. Rather, it endorses the right and pushes voters and politicians that way. That being said, relying on the NDP to be the epitome of the whole left wing is a fallacy itself. 

It simply is the case that they are as far left as mainstream British Columbian and Canadian politics go before accusations of insanity get genuine on the accuser’s part, not that it has stopped certain vested interests from engaging in some classic red-baiting. There are parties, people, and organizations to the NDP’s left, but they are neither mainstream nor do they have access to the levers of power.

Just as the federal Liberals are shifting rightwards in an attempt to save their skins and seats, the BC NDP will try a softer turn so as to not completely abandon its progressive sheen. The Nova Scotian Liberals are definitely behind the pivot and the Albertan NDP’s one term was a Mulcairite dream. 

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s Tories are most certainly forming the next government, too. It is all turning to the right nationally, and the left wing has no real legislative base to build up on. Once this blue tide abates, it will be back to the Liberals and their provincial allies.

Ultimately, the lesson is that the BC NDP is likely moving to the centre in the face of a fiercely right-wing official opposition — and it might go further right should it be succeeded by the then-supplant Conservatives.